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A company's core competency is the one thing that it can do better than its competitors. A core competency can be anything from product development to employee dedication. Modern business theories suggest that most activities that are not part of a company's core competency should be outsourced. IThe concept of core competencies was developed in the management field C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel introduced the concept in a 1990 Harvard Business Review article. They wrote that a core competency is "an area of specialized expertise that is the result of harmonizing complex streams of technology and work activity." As an example they gave Honda's expertise in engines. Honda was able to exploit this core competency to develop a variety of quality products from lawn mowers and snow blowers to trucks and automobiles. To take an example from the automotive industry, it has been claimed that Volvo’s core competence is safety. According to Prahalad and Hamel a core competence has three characteristics: it provides potential access to a wide variety of markets, it increases perceived customer benefits and it is hard for competitors to imitate. For example, Black and Decker's core technological competency is in 200 to 600 W electric motors. All of their products are modifications of this basic technology (with the exception of their work benches, flash lights, battery charging systems, toaster ovens, and coffee percolators). Forretning og Ledelse – Lektion 7